In short, there is no place for the extreme sports "Go Big or Go Home" attitude in Parkour.

When I started "parkour," (i put that in quotes because of the following) I really didn't know what it was all about. I just saw the techniques, I saw the videos, and I went out and did some really stupid stuff that could have seriously injured me. For a little while (and really, a VERY little while) the group I train with were all about "Go big or go home."

I realized, pretty quickly (thankfully), that this was not what parkour was about. It isn't "Go big or go home." It isn't the X-Games. It's not about "jumping off of s%@*." I was damn lucky I didn't break both my legs. As it is, I bashed my hip on a screwed up precision (though that wasn't a "go big" thing, it was just sandy and I didn't check my surfaces (ANOTHER lesson learned)), and to this day a year and a half later, it still gets sore if I lay on it for too long.

Don't trust me on this. Don't blindly take my word for truth, or lies. Read. Read the articles stickied on the .Net forums. Read the articles on APK. Read the articles on NYPK, Colorado PK, any of the other matured community sites (meaning not www.ihartpkandjumpingoffastuff.com). Read and THINK about it, ponder it, meditate on it - whatever on it - until you realize WHY parkour is not about "go big or go home."

I think too quickly seasoned traceurs tell new people that big drops aren't what it's all about, but they don't give any reasons (other than the obvious health/safety reasons which a lot of people apparently don't care about.)

In a thread I was reading recently, a new guy was saying he was drilling 10 foot drops - great. Now you know you can do it if you have to. What's the point in doing something THAT risky over and over and over again until you get hurt?

A traceur named Hardcoretraceur, whom I really respect, said something at the NYPK07 jam: Someone pointed to a roof and said "Could you jump from that?"He replied "Yes, but I don't want to."Hardcoretraceur believes, and I agree with him, that the best way to train for drops is to do drops. Which means while squats and pistols and whatever else helps condition the legs, nothing conditions them for drops like doing drops. But he, and I, want to be doing parkour when we're 30. 40. 50. We value our knees, so we stay ground-level. There's no reason to practice jumping off of buildings. If you ever need to, if you train hard enough with low drops, you'll probably be able to make a few big drops without a problem. But if you train a ton of high drops, the damage you're doing is going to prevent you from doing ANYTHING pretty quickly.

So please, anyone who is still of the "Go big or go home" attitude: Don't change because I tell you to. Or because M2 tells you to, or Sebastian, or eZ, or David Belle. But do LISTEN to us. Take our advice. The advice of people who have been in your position. And then do your own reading, your own thinking, and keep searching until you find the path to the same conclusion we found.

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Well, I didn't complete all of my goals, but I did a decent job. I ended up going on a self-imposed week of rest first week of break, because my body was just self-destructing from overuse. After the week, I felt FANTASTIC though, and training resumed, and it resumed hard. Tuesday I trained with Doc Akh in Westminster, at McDaniels, and then we went to Acro (gymnastics gym) and I helped him teach his Parkour class. Wednesday was training at AACC with Disciple, Thursday I went down to Primal Fitness to play with Disciple and take their Advanced Parkour class.

And then Friday. I got at text from hardcoretraceur at about 8PM, telling me he was coming down to DC (He lives near NYC) with Kasper (who was staying with him, and lives in the Bahamas). Long story short, I drove down to DC at 4AM to pick him up from the bus, we came back to my house and crashed for a few hours. After breakfast, we met up with nickm, Ben Horn, and Disciple to train at AACC, and then we went to Primal to build things, hang out, go through a few Crossfit workouts, a Parkour open gym, and then we slept there. The next morning, we trained at Primal for most of the day again. So anyawy, things I accomplished:

GOALS/ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Others:

In other news, I don't think I ever posted a link to the presentation I gave to Campus Safety. You can find the Power Point presentation here. This does not include what I said, which really is the important part, but it is mostly just a list of topics I covered. Feel free to edit and use this for your own purposes, just give credit where credit is due if asked.

"I feel stronger." Years later, the line still randomly comes to me, unbeckoned.

It was from one of the most odd and intriguing video games ever made -- Planescape: Torment. You woke up in the morgue as a scarred and battered man who didn't know his name. When you got killed, you would… wake up back in the morgue. You were immortal. You couldn't die. Your goal was to figure out how this happened, who you are, and what you should do about it.

It was beautiful, well-written, and immersive. But the point that still stands out to me is that line.

"I feel stronger."

It happened when you leveled up. The levels up weren't something you chose; they just happened when you accumulated enough experience. It's an interesting metaphor -- you wake completely ignorant, but as you accumulate experiences, you feel stronger. Not "I am stronger." I feel stronger.